Worthy
by Dolasiar
Summary: Yuuri and Conrad truly deserve each other.  Sometimes they just don't realize it.  AU, unrelated one-shots.
1. Supermarket

This is an AU series. I decided to try out NaNoWriMo, and the only reasonable way for me was with unrelated AU stories. So please forgive me on technical errors; I've never written so much so quickly before.

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><p>Yuuri bobbed his head up and down in time with the music coming out of his headphones while walking through the parking lot of the local supermarket. He pushed ten metal shopping carts in front of him towards the electronic doors, checking for cars and customers along the way. The left door stuck on its track for a moment before following the right door's lead, and Yuuri sharply turned the line of carts so that they would head into the correct lane of the cart corral.<p>

A wave of heat hit him as he passed through the doors, a sharp contrast to the pleasantly cool outdoors. Since the corral was full enough to last another hour or so, he headed to the inside of the store. In most cases Yuuri would have preferred to stay outside. His khaki pants and black polo shirt (the store's uniform, as far as that went) were more than enough to protect him from the "cold" that his manager, a tall and emotional man named Gunter, so desperately despised.

As he expected, while he was stuffing his headphones into his pocket and walking into the checkout area, his manager came running at him and hugged him more tightly than Yuuri thought necessary. He didn't really think any hugging was necessary, but that was just how Gunter showed he cared. But right as the man took a deep breath to start commenting on how pink his ears were, the PA system system beeped and got their attention.

"Guest service manager to register three, please. Guest service manager to register three." As Gunter's grip loosened so he could go, Yuuri spaced out a little bit. That _voice_ was his favorite part of the job. Well, the owner of the voice was, despite how nice the voice itself was. But he was at work now, so he shouldn't just concentrate on how deep and smooth Con- his coworker's voice was. He looked around to see what he should do next, and saw that register three needed a bagger. Coincidence, divine providence. Same thing.

Yuuri sized up his target while he slid into position. The customer was a middle aged woman with a cart about a quarter full of groceries and two small children behind her. Seventy percent chance she didn't care what bags he used, twenty on paper, and ten on plastic. And of course, she would make a comment about not smashing... the eggs? The bread? The potato chips? Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that the paper bags up on top were empty. At least that didn't take much time to fix. Now that he had the basics down, he was ready to initiate contact.

"Would you like paper or plastic today, ma'am?" Standing upright: check. Bright smile and cheery voice: check. Direct eye contact: check.

"It doesn't matter, just don't smash my bread. Thanks." Yuuri started scooping up the little that was coming down the conveyor belt. He noticed that a lot of bags were already piled up on the counter thanks to the dutiful cashier.

He'd been at the lane for over thirty seconds now, so it was about time to acknowledge _him_ too. The bagger-cashier exchange during busy hours was pretty standard, and today was no exception.

"Hey Conrad." he offered.

"Hey Yuuri." came back. There was the _voice_ again. Yuuri felt a small shiver run up his spine. He could avoid eye contact for a while, but he couldn't just close his ears. He handed the bag containing the bread directly to the woman and bid her farewell with half a mind. The other half was still spinning, repeating the "hey Yuuri" over and over and over. Hopefully he'd learn to concentrate soon, or this job wouldn't last too long.

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><p>A month later it was Thanksgiving. Being the busiest day of the year for a grocery store (according to his friend Murata anyway), the majority of the part time staff of the store would be working to man all the registers from early morning until late afternoon. Much to Yuuri's delight, Conrad was one of the many selected to work. It was the first time they'd been scheduled together in that long month, not that Yuuri was counting. He supposed it was natural when his parents didn't want him working school nights and Conrad worked, well, pretty much just weekday nights. Not that Yuuri was checking the master schedule to see when Conrad worked. And he wasn't in denial at all.<p>

He got to the store ten minutes before his shift started and realized he had nothing to do. All of the members of the deli department were eating lunch up in the break room, and while they seemed nice a lot of the time, they'd called him "fresh meat" a few too many times for him to be entirely comfortable around them. So instead he found himself loitering near the front desk, waiting for it to be close enough to two o'clock him for to clock in.

Yuuri quickly swiped his card when he saw Conrad walking towards the clock despite it being seven minutes too early. There were two empty lanes, but all of the lanes with cashiers also had baggers already. He knew it wouldn't be a long term solution, but he walked over to one of the slower baggers and started helping him out. He thought he was safe, but then the day's manager (a perpetually disgruntled looking older man named Adalbert) barked at him.

"Mike! Yuuri! I don't need two of you on one lane. One of you go over to Conrad." Mike whined quietly about how he got to Laura first, so Yuuri had to go deal with the fast checker. Fearing his manager's over-muscled forearms more than dealing with looking at Conrad, Yuuri made his way over to the lonely cashier.

_Stupid Conrad clocking in early too_, he thought. There weren't any customers yet, so he opened his mouth for the formulaic greeting. He spoke out at the same time as Conrad, though, so he missed getting to hear the _voice_ talking to him. _Oh well. At least it'll be so busy today that I won't have to worry about making small talk with him._

Just then, a customer walked up. It was a man in his late twenties talking animatedly on a cell phone, pushing one cart that was overflowing with groceries and pulling another cart behind him. He looked at Yuuri and preemptively made his bagging request. "Smash the bread, whatever, I don't care. Just go fast."

Yuuri hadn't encountered someone like that before, so he looked up at Conrad questioningly. That was a mistake though. He'd been carefully restricting his Conrad intake to peripheral vision and the samples of his voice that came while he conversed with the patrons. The full on frontal assault of Conrad images- his mile wide smile, his slightly disheveled hair, his crisp collar on his white dress shirt, the hint of muscles revealed on his forearms below where his cuffs were rolled up- almost made him forget what he was supposed to be doing.

He continued staring at Conrad, hoping for some guidance, but what he heard didn't help.

"I heard you can take it fast...?"

_I'd take it so fast... wait. Wait. Oh, the customer asked us to go fast. I think. _"It's not like there's much choice when Yozak's the cashier." Yuuri finally got out. He swore the redhead had a vendetta against him or something. Maybe Yozak was mean to all the new guys, but every time Yuuri bagged for him, he had to stay at full alert. Otherwise, the food coming down the conveyor belt would inevitably push something off the edge of the counter or into the bread. Even a cashier on his first day would know to put down the eggs after the cases of soda cans and not before.

"Good man," Conrad let out with a trace of a smirk.

Yuuri didn't know if Conrad meant him or Yozak, but his pondering was cut off when Conrad started to move. He was _fast. _Yuuri thought Yozak was fast, but this just made Yozak look lazy. The cashier's arms were moving independently yet in synch. The right searched through the items within reach on the belt for the next item to scan, and the left rotated the food to the correct angle to read the bar code and then placed it on the belt. Half of the items that went through the process actually flew through the air from one hand to the other, but they all ended up properly on the second belt going to Yuuri. After a couple seconds, Yuuri realized that Conrad was as precise and considerate to his bagger as he was fast. He was particularly searching out items that he knew should go together in the bags, and the way the items ended up on the second belt was always the easiest way for Yuuri to pick them up.

Yuuri felt like he was drowning with how far the food had backed up, but he was impressed with Conrad's sense of teamwork. Any time the man couldn't scan anything else due to the backup, he stepped over and helped Yuuri fill a couple of bags. And sometimes he seemed to reach extra far to grab for some produce; he would turn and flash Yuuri a smile while waiting for the scale to measure the produce's weight. It was exhausting trying to keep up, but he thought more about Conrad than about the paper burn his forearms were developing from all the paper bags. Conrad was a beautiful cashier.


	2. Popsicles & Nerf

Yuuri put his hand up to his forehead, trying to block out some of the sun's rays as he looked at the address of the house in front of him. It matched the number scrawled on the slip of paper in his other hand, he was sure, but... the house was odd.

"The house is totally normal," Wolfram had assured him earlier in the week. It could have been normal back in the fifties, Yuuri mused, what with the pink flamingos and stout lawn gnomes staring out at him from behind a white picket fence. The lawn was trimmed so short he could a fair amount of dirt throughout the yard, and there were some sunflowers reaching up to block the kitchen windows.

But it was hardly what he expected to find in modern day Japan. Although, he admitted, it was pretty normal by Wolfram's standards. Seriously, the boy had blond hair and claimed it was natural. He also had a code of honor that made next to no sense to anyone but himself, and that caused him to get sent into the hallway on a regular basis. What a great partner to get assigned for a math project.

He walked up to the door and grabbed the knocker. After using it to knock a couple times, he took a closer look. It was ghastly looking, similar to a face. It reminded him a bit of some horror movies his brother had brought home before. Maybe it was a warning. He could go buy a bunch of popsicle sticks on the way home and try to figure out what to do for the project alone. But that would leave Wolfram out, and he'd feel bad making his classmate get a bad grade. Not to mention that someone would probably be coming up to answer the door any moment.

As if to meet his expectations, the door swung open sharply. A tall blond girl- the same blond as Wolfram, he thought- stood there for a short while. At first he was trying to appreciate just how hot she was, but then he realized she was doing pretty much the same thing. Her eyes roved up and down his body like no girl had ever checked him out before. He thought of his looks as typical and nondescript, but she apparently disagreed. Before it got unbearably uncomfortable, she turned around and motioned for him to come into the house.

He gingerly stepped across the threshold and took off his shoes. There weren't any guest slippers nearby, so he just kept going in his socks. He winced when the woman let out a shrill yell.

"Wolfie! Your handsome young friend is here. You'd better hurry up, unless you want me to eat him up." She turned back to face him again, focusing her bright green eyes on his black ones. "He didn't tell me you were going to be so," she paused to bend over and put her face barely inches from his, "tempting." Yuuri attempted to scurry back several feet, but she closed on him with alacrity. "Are you seeing anyone right now? I happen to be in favor of free love myself."

Yuuri breathed a sigh of relief as he heard the heavy clomping of a pair of feet coming down the hallway that led into the entry way. He also smiled inwardly at the idea of being relieved to see Wolfram, of all people.

"Let him go this instant! You know I have to work on my precious math project with him. There's no time to waste!" The new arrival's voice wasn't quite as high pitched and energetic as the woman's, but it still grated on Yuuri's ears. His wrist hurt too, and he realized it was because Wolfram had grabbed it to pull him along further into the house.

The hallway was brightly lit, and there were unframed photographs stuck to the wall from the floor all the way to the ceiling. Most of them featured one or more of three young boys, often in unflattering positions. Sometimes they were even in dresses. He admitted that they looked just a little bit cute when they were two feet tall, but he got some uncomfortable seeing what looked like a thirteen-year-old Wolfram sporting what looked suspiciously like a wedding dress. His own mother certainly had some ideas that did not fit with his self-image as a man.

"How come your sister's not in any of these?" Yuuri asked.

"I don't have a sister."

"Funny you should say that, but there was a hot girl that opened the door who just _happened_ to have blond hair. You know we're in Japan right?"

"That's my mother, you wimp. Don't you know it's rude to talk about how attractive your friend's relatives are?"

"Your MOTHER? She can't be more than twenty! Well, twenty-five, maybe, but still. And why am I a wimp?"

"She'd probably love to hear it," Wolfram trailed off quietly. His voice picked up its usual fire when he continued. "But please stop talking about her like that. By the honor of House Bielefeld, I will strike you down if you continue."

"Okay, I got it. Hands off your mom. So what are we doing? I sort of zoned out during class and only heard him talking about popsicle sticks. Do you have the handout or something?"

"I don't need a handout," Wolfram scoffed. "We are to assemble various shapes using popsicle sticks. We have to explain why the shapes are important, and the ones that make the best shapes will get to give a presentation to some students at an elementary school." His eyes had started burning by the end, and Yuuri got the sinking feeling that he would be putting in a lot more effort than he'd planned on.

Wolfram led him to an open room that seemed more deliberately arranged than the hallway. It had dark grey walls, a light carpet, some black leather couches, and a shelf in the corner was decorated with some small piles of knit... somethings. A few had what he surmised were supposed to be faces (a pair of black circles for eyes sewed an inch or two above what might have been pink mouths). They were unsettling, but pretty cute anyway.

"My older brother Gwendal decorated this room. I like his taste much more than Mother's, personally. The pictures in the halls are a lot tamer than they would be if he didn't approve them first. He's very capable."

Yuuri would not describe allowing pictures of his brother wearing a dress to be hung in the entry hallway as capable. He shuddered, thinking about if his mother had posted pictures of him wearing a dress in the living room.

"Anyway, Wolfram, we should get started. Do you have the popsicle sticks?"

"I'll go get them and the glue. There's a bunch of old newspapers in the corner we can use to protect the carpet. Start spreading them out." Wolfram waited a few seconds, as if to make sure his orders sunk in, before walking out on his mission. Yuuri went to the corner with the newspapers and picked up an armful to bring to the open center of the living room.

He had a few spread out by the time Wolfram returned, holding a bottle of glue and a shoe box full of popsicle sticks like he promised. He set them down on the ground by Yuuri, and then he turned and left again. Yuuri guessed he had to go to the bathroom or something. Since he could get out of this sooner if he started sooner, he picked up a pair of sticks and started trying to come up with ideas of what might constitute "interesting geometric shapes."

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><p>Conrad got home late in the afternoon. He didn't have any classes on the weekends, but he was holding a part time job as a waiter. Wolfram thought that someone from a family as well off as theirs serving tables was demeaning. But his younger brother had a whole host of reasons to dislike him, so Conrad didn't worry too much about adding wood to the fire.<p>

His late father told him once that "A good man always has a steady source of income," and that seemed like practical advice. And even though his mother offered to let him live comfortably with her as long as he liked, he felt that would probably only reinforce Wolfram's strong class ideas. He admitted that on some level, he was probably trying so hard to succeed at school and work partly to prove that your father didn't have to be the CEO of a construction company (like Gwendal's) or the heir of a restaurant chain (like Wolfram's) in order for you to be a worthwhile human being.

Pushing such heavy thoughts from his head, he opened the back door to his mother's house and saw her standing at the kitchen sink. Her tastes were amusingly pedestrian for someone of high enough breeding to avoid Wolfram's ire. She was scrubbing a pot with a bright yellow sponge and humming a theme song from her favorite television show, but she broke off the tune to talk to him when he shut the door.

"Welcome home, honey."

"Good afternoon, Mother."

She started humming again, but as Conrad moved to leave the room, she started talking again. "Wolfie brought home a cute boy today. They're playing in the living room if you want to check on them, but don't steal him! You know how Wolfie gets when he thinks people are taking his things."

"I definitely do." Conrad doubted Wolfram had much attachment to the "boy." The blond had a tendency to rant about how unrefined and rude all the students at the public high school were. He didn't have the will to stand up to his mother's request that he go out and learn about the common people, so Conrad didn't pity him at all. He was fond of his own memories of the school, actually.

Conrad thought that he probably should greet the guest at least, regardless of whether or not Wolfram would appreciate his presence. He nodded to his mother before leaving the kitchen. When he got to the living room, he didn't see Wolfram at all. There was a bunch of newspaper spread all over the floor with different combinations of popsicle sticks, and that was about it. After a second glance, he also noticed that there was someone sleeping on the couch- a black haired someone wearing a black school uniform to be specific.

He wasn't sure quite what to make of the boy sleeping on the couch, but he recognized the popsicle sticks. A geometry teacher at the high school had required his students to build stuff out of the sticks, and he knew the teacher had been there for a good twenty years before Conrad took the class. It was probably the same teacher, or at least a new teacher too unimaginative to alter the syllabus at all. The project was more fun than he expected, and he made some pretty cool shapes with his partner. After the projects were returned, he made the mistake of showing it to his mother, though. She delightedly took them off his hands, and they were standing proudly on a desk in the "Conrad Room."

The boy on the couch started stirring, and Conrad turned his attention to him. He sat up, blinked twice, and stretched his arms above his head for a few seconds before realizing that he wasn't alone. He stood up abruptly.

"I'm Yuuri Shibuya. I'm in a class with Wolfram, and I came over to work on a project with him."

"I'm Wolfram's brother, Conrad. Where is he? Mother said he was in here with you."

"He pretty much dropped off the supplies and then walked off. I ended up doing all the work myself while waiting for him to get back."

"That," Conrad said while gesturing towards the pile of shapes made out of popsicle sticks, "looks like it took a while to build up."

"Yeah, he left like..." Yuuri trailed off, his eyes searching around for something. He ended up pulling out his cell phone. "Two hours ago? It would have been nice if he at least told me what he was doing. And I can't even go home because I don't know if we have to do anything else."

"Is that for Mr. Matsuda? I had him ten years ago and we didn't have to write a report or anything."

"Yeah, it is. He even told us on the first day of class that he was proud of how he hadn't changed the curriculum in the past thirty-four years. He's so old!" Yuuri made a strange hand gesture to accompany the last statement, emphasizing just how old Matsuda was. "He even claims he doesn't have a cell phone."

It struck Conrad suddenly that Yuuri was adorable when he was griping about the teacher. An urge rose up in him to try to comfort him. But he didn't really know the boy at all, and an irritating teacher was hardly a good enough excuse for Conrad to go and hug him. Yuuri's hands twitched with some sort of nervous energy, and that gave him an idea to work with.

"So, you said you got here a couple hours ago, right?

"Yeah?"

"Do you like staying inside all day?"

Yuuri snorted. "No. I usually spend my Saturdays managing a baseball team, but I had to do homework this week."

"I don't think I can make up the baseball to you, but I do have a fair number of Nerf guns that we could mess around with outside."

"Really? I don't think I've handled a Nerf gun in five years." The boy's smile was so wide Conrad almost thought he was being sarcastic. He sounded sincere, though, and his eyes were practically sparkling.

"Come on, then. We can go to the back yard. We should stop in the armory first to choose our weapons."

"The armory?"

Instead of explaining himself further, Conrad just led Yuuri to a small room. After they entered, he turned on the light and watched as Yuuri gaped. The walls were covered in various play weapons, mostly in bright, neon colors. There were over a dozen Nerf guns, but there were also water pistols, inflatable boxing gloves, extending and retracting light sabers, and more bendy swords than anyone else Conrad knew.

"When I was younger, it was sort of my dream to be a knight when I grew up," Conrad offered to break the silence after ten seconds. He didn't get a reply, though, so he walked up to the back wall and picked up a six chamber revolver model Nerf gun. "Take whichever you like. There's more ammo in the bucket."

Yuuri finally moved, but instead of picking a gun, he turned to look at Conrad.

"This is amazing! I can't imagine Wolfram actually deigning to have fun like a normal kid."

"He didn't. I managed to convince Gwendal- that's our older brother- a couple times, but Wolfram never wanted to play with me. Most of the times I used these were with friends from school."

"I should have guessed." Yuuri moved over and started handling some of the guns. "I wish I could have had you as a partner instead of him. You probably would have helped out instead of ditching me."

"Actually, I did help you out. At the beginning of the year when Wolfram showed Mother the syllabus for your math class, she got excited about the idea of the popsicle sticks. She thought it would be more like a 'normal' family to collect them ourselves instead of just buying a ton."

"Collect?"

"Yeah. I've had so many popsicles the past two months... Gwendal and Wolfram both refused to help out, but I thought it might be fun."

Yuuri froze. "They were..." he started to talk, but he trailed off.

"I did wash them, you know."

"That's not it!" Yuuri turned around with a gun in his hand. Conrad caught some traces of a blush on Yuuri's face before wincing as a Nerf dart hit him in the forehead. Yuuri dashed past him towards the door, and Conrad just hoped he would remember the way outside.

Conrad waited a couple seconds to give him a head start before he started running himself. He started shouting on the way out for fun. "So dishonorable! I will take you down, you demon!"

* * *

><p>Yuuri was exhausted. He thought of himself as in shape for a fifteen year old boy, but Conrad was relentless. The two had been running around the back yard for the better part of an hour, and the man had yet to break a sweat. Hoping to launch another surprise attack since the first one was so successful, he ducked behind a statue.<p>

The fact that he could duck behind a statue didn't disturb him that much anymore. The back yard was so expansive it was hard to believe it belonged in the middle of urban Japan. It resembled the estates of the French kings shown in his history books- the ones with lines of cherubs spraying water in huge arcs. The difference between this and the front yard was so big that Yuuri just assumed it was another difference in who got to choose the decorations. It did seem suited to Wolfram's aristocratic sensibilities, after all.

He heard footsteps thudding in the grass near him, so he pulled out from behind the statue and started firing at where he guessed Conrad would be. While his guess about the man's location was good, his aim was not and his shots missed the target by an embarrassing margin. His gun had a lot of ammo, though, so he kept up a brave face against the slowing advancing Conrad.

Yuuri started backing up to maintain a proper distance, but then he heart a disheartening click. A piece of orange plastic snapped off the trigger and flew to the ground. He didn't get hurt at all, but the broken trigger refused to shoot anything else.

He twisted his head left and right quickly, trying to figure out if there was a good escape route. His prey-turned-predator, though, didn't leave much time for rumination. Conrad shifted his shoulders up so that he appeared even bigger, and he bobbed up an down in Yuuri's vision with his steady approach.

"Mercy! I'm out of ammo. Come on." Yuuri pleaded, hoping that it might trigger some instinct deep within the creeping danger.

Conrad stopped his constant advance less than ten feet away, but then he deliberately took one large step forward. "Did you show me mercy when you shot at me inside my own house?"

Another step. "Did you show me mercy when I had to go help Mother bring the groceries inside?" Yuuri did feel a bit guilty about that one. At least he hadn't caused Conrad to drop the bag he was carrying at the time.

Another step. The Nerf gun was still aimed at Yuuri's head, and there was no way Conrad could miss from this range. "Should I show you mercy?"

Another step. The rubber tip of the bullet was now resting on Yuuri's forehead, and he kept trying to focus on that instead of the other ways he could tell Conrad was close. Like how he could smell the traces of aftershave wafting off Conrad's cheeks, which were now coated with a fine layer of stubble. Or how he could hardly see most of Conrad's body because the setting sun was directly behind him, giving him a soft orange glow. Yuuri felt his heartbeat speeding up from the proximity. He tried to quash what he guessed was going to end up as a blush on his face.

"I-" Yuuri started to respond, but a yell from inside the house interrupted him.

"Yuuri! Where are you?" came Wolfram's shrill voice.

Conrad backed up enough to give Yuuri some personal space, and then he offered up a compromise. "How about I let you go if you take care of an irritation for me? One shot to the back should be good."

"You mean your brother?" Yuuri laughed, feeling the rest of the tension dissipating. "That'll work for me. Though you're going to have to bring him out here. I don't want to risk him smashing up the shapes that he didn't even help make."

"I can do that, but it'll cost you. Come play with me again next week. You said you're busy Saturday, but you can't be booked the whole weekend."

Yuuri covered his mouth just in time to hide the giggle that was threatening to escape. He'd just spent an hour running around outside screaming battle cries and shooting a guy with foam darts. Even so, getting asked by a full-grown man to come over and "play" felt a bit ridiculous. The giggle ended up coming out anyway when he finally replied, "Yeah, sure. I'll make sure to have a good angle on the door, so get him out here."

Next week, Yuuri resolved as he watched the smooth motion of Conrad entering the house, he was going to get to the bottom of those blushes.


	3. Band

On the first day of school after he transferred to Shin Makoku High School, Yuuri was accosted by some bullies in the first five minutes. He was saved through the mysterious, yet timely, appearance and subsequent interference of an older boy. His rescuer was tall enough to see through the crowded hall of students, strong enough to pull away Yuuri's attackers, and handsome enough that Yuuri blushed when trying to thank him.

He introduced himself as Conrad, a member of the student association's welcome committee who was assigned to Yuuri. His mission, quotable from the association's handbook was to "assist new students in acclimating to the school environment and foster healthy relationships." The second part sounded shifty to Yuuri; he hoped it was supposed to encourage the new students to meet the friends of the guides. He was thankful for the first part, though, and especially thankful that Conrad's interpretation included fending off thugs.

A student guide was usually set to stay with his charge for two weeks, though he could leave earlier if the new student was confident. Yuuri felt that time limit approaching keenly, and he tried to make the best of it. He learned that he had more connections to Conrad than most people would guess. They both loved watching pro baseball games in person, and they both had mothers with unwholesome interests in embarrassing their sons in public.

Perhaps most importantly, they shared a love of instrumental music. Conrad played trumpet in the school band, and he devoted his free time to practicing and perfecting his art. Yuuri had played trombone in middle school, but he quit after fighting with a teacher who humiliated a player in front of the whole audience. While he did enjoy playing his trombone, Yuuri decided to switch his art class for band more to increase the time he got to see Conrad. Otherwise, he knew the chances of getting the same classes as a student a year ahead of him were almost zero.

Yuuri resigned himself to the coming breakup. He wouldn't be walking the hallways with Conrad, eating lunch with him, or meeting him after school to see how his day had gone. It would feel a little lonely, and he knew he would have to get used to being more independent. Not having the pillar to rest on would be a trial.

But Conrad surprised him. Instead of bidding Yuuri farewell on the dreaded Friday, he said "I'll see you Monday," and walked off with a smile. And he _did_ see him Monday, and the day after that. If anything, Yuuri saw him more often than in the first two weeks after coming to the school. Conrad even drove him home twice when it was raining- "You can't bike home in that." And Yuuri felt himself getting swept away in that comforting, low voice.

After getting to know him, Conrad seemed equally honest and direct when talking to Yuuri about baseball as he was when he threatened to have the guys that tried to take Yuuri's backpack expelled. But his eyes never seemed to be in the same place as the rest of him. They would be out of focus at some times or staring in the wrong direction at others. And while his responses and actions were always appropriate, Yuuri wondered why his eyes didn't match. Maybe his entire outer appearance was a farce, a mask to keep everyone's opinion of him a certain way. Whatever the reason, it made Yuuri uncomfortable.

The level of discomfort increased dramatically whenever he tried to look at the rest of Conrad's face for information. Yuuri had admitted that he thought Conrad was handsome since the first time they'd met, and that attraction only grew with time. So most of the time he tried to concentrate on just the eyes. And that was when he made his most important discovery. When Conrad was playing his trumpet in band class, he wasn't handsome. He was breathtakingly beautiful.

He concentrated just on his music, putting everything he had into playing his instrument to the best of his ability. His endless hours in the practice rooms and his own bedroom led to a unique singularity of movement in his body; he swayed ever so slightly in time with his music, and Yuuri could feel the power rolling off Conrad in waves. Best of all, his eyes matched the intensity of the rest of his body. While Yuuri couldn't make eye contact with him, he could easily see the sharpness with which Conrad concentrated on the page. His eyes swiftly read in the shape of his phrases, the pitch and attack of his notes, and all the hand-written information scribed neatly above the bars. There was no filter between Conrad's thoughts and actions while he was playing.

Yuuri possessed nowhere near Conrad's level of skill, and his ability to concentrate was similarly low. So sometimes he would start staring at Conrad if the trombone section had a couple seconds of rests. He always felt a little bit guilty when that happened because his section leader just happened to be Conrad's older brother, and Yuuri just happened to sit immediately next to him. Gwendal's expectations for his section were high, and he didn't take kindly to Yuuri missing entrances from spacing out. He didn't know the reason for the spacing out, Yuuri fervently hoped.

* * *

><p>It was about a month after Yuuri joined the school band that the final concert pieces for the semester were supposed to be announced. The assistant conductor, a student teacher named Gunter, stepped up to the podium and tapped on the stand with his baton twice before waiting for the class to quiet down. Yuuri did a double take looking up at him; his hair was sparkling. Glitter was liberally spread throughout his hair, almost as if he'd lost a fight with a craft store clerk. It didn't seem to be falling onto the ground near him though. Strange.<p>

"I'm going to read the composer's description of the piece now. Hopefully you know enough of the story that it's based on that it won't go over your heads."

Gunter took a deep breath and then started reading in a dramatic voice. "_The Lion's Mane _attempts to evoke feelings of the ancient play _The Lion's Return._ The first movement, a fanfare for the trumpet section and percussion, sends the hero off gloriously with expectations of a triumph on the front lines. The second movement features disharmony throughout the band, alternating between loud and soft sections in order to portray the conflicted feelings of both the the hero and the lover as the troops march to battle. The third movement is loud and cacophonous, like the tumult of battle. Far away from the citizens they protect, the soldiers feel no need to hide the true horror of war. It finishes with a single trumpet playing the hero's theme quickly and quietly, as he runs to escape the massacre that left only him alive. The fourth movement is a slow ballad in a minor key. Thinly instrumented, it shows the loneliness of those now left alone. The clarinet, flute, and trombone have interleaved solos reflecting on the lives of soldiers lost. The fifth movement captures the unexpected joy at the hero's homecoming. His theme returns, but this time slow and soaring as he savors the feelings of meeting his lover again after his arduous journey. The trombone's solo from the fourth movement also returns, now in a major key and at an upbeat tempo to mirror the energy that returns to the lover's life. The resulting duet, supported by the full band, reveals the exultation of a life reclaimed."

Yuuri looked around the room after Gunter finished. A couple of girls in the flute section had dreamy expressions on their faces, but most of the class looked simply bored after the long-winded explanation.

Gunter left the podium, and the main director, an old man with dyed yellow hair named Shinou, stepped up.

"We'll be doing this as our competition piece since it has a variety of styles and enough solos to keep the judges' attention. It's also very emotional and shows how good we are at setting and following a mood. Plus, it's straightforward enough that we'll be able to split our time with a more technically impressive piece that I'll be handing out next week."

Wolfram, back in the percussion section, shouted out a question without raising his hand. "Why are we getting the easy piece first?"

Shinou turned his head so that he could stare directly at Wolfram. "First, because I said so." After Wolfram broke his challenging eye contact, he continued. "Also, I want our soloists to have sufficient time to practice. Their parts have a lot more riding on them." Excited whispers washed over the band.

"And yes, the soloists are already decided, based on the performance tests you did last week during lunch. Conrad will be taking the main solo on trumpet," he announced. The brown haired youth nodded but didn't change his expression. But he was so famously modest that Yuuri assumed he was elated. He could always ask after class, though Conrad also had a tendency to avoid expressing his emotions in conversation too.

"We'll have Yozak on the flute solo," Shinou continued. The orange haired youth started fist pumping and smirking at the heartbroken girls seated around him. "Anissina will be taking the clarinet solo."

The pink haired girl smiled confidently and then told the whole class that they could rely on her. She looked directly at Gwendal when she said it. Yuuri saw Gwendal's eye twitch, and he stifled a laugh at the reaction. Gwendal was certainly going to get the trombone solo, so he was going to end up doing a lot of practices with her and Yozak. Yuuri wasn't sure exactly what their relationship was, but he knew his section leader always packed up and left expeditiously after class if Anissina started winding her way over through the chairs.

"And finally, we'll have Yuuri doing the trombone solo." Yuuri gaped, and he noticed several other surprised expressions across the room. He turned to look at Gwendal, but the grey haired boy didn't look disgruntled or even slightly displeased.

Acting as if he hadn't dropped a bomb, Shinou started passing around the sheet music and then had the class start rehearsing the introductory fanfare. Yuuri concentrated on breathing properly and watching the conductor's hand movements, but his worries didn't disappear.

* * *

><p>Yuuri was still a bit dazed at the end of class, so he didn't notice Wolfram come up and approach his section leader. He was close enough to catch the conversation, even if he might have preferred not to.<p>

The blond's voice was soft, but it was still piercing. Addressing his older brother, it was more subdued than usual, but not by much. "Brother! You'd make a much better soloist than that wimp of a second chair you have. You should go complain to Shinou and get him to fix such a foolish mistake."

"Wolfram, I asked him at the beginning of the semester not to give me any solos. I'm going to be doing a solo recital later, and I don't need any extra distractions. Besides, do you remember what happened the last time someone questioned Shinou's choice?"

The blond shuddered. "You mean Dakaskos, the alto sax that everyone thought was going to have a professional recording deal?"

Gwendal nodded. "He simply asked Shinou if someone else could do the solo because he was going to be on a family vacation on the day of the concert. He showed up the next class _bald_ and was playing bassoon."

"BASSOON?" Yuuri interjected.

Gwendal closed his eyes for a moment and made small motions with his fingers. He addressed Yuuri coolly. "I don't know what he sees in you, myself. Just try not to humiliate us."

"Some way to bolster your underclassman's withering self-confidence," Yuuri muttered under his breath.

He broke away to go ask Conrad what his opinion was. Conrad was unexpectedly glowing (in his subtle, unassuming way), and Yuuri was surprised, if pleasantly, by the response. "I'm looking forward to playing with you."

* * *

><p>Wolfram was brave enough to try to argue his case despite Gwendal's warning. Shinou, however, brushed him aside with an airy confidence.<p>

"Yuuri will be just fine. And even if the rumors I've been hearing lately are false, I still believe he is more suited to play opposite Conrad than your other brother. The piece is... sensual."

The boy agreed, if somewhat reluctantly, that he didn't really want to see _that guy_ playing a "sensual" piece with his respectable older brother.

* * *

><p>The slow and mournful solo in the fourth movement was supposed to be the hard one for Yuuri. Everyone (even Gwendal) was impressed at how emotionally he was able to perform it from the very beginning. Murata had teased him earlier, telling him to imagine how he would feel if he knew that he wouldn't see Conrad again. And embarrassingly enough, the idea worked. The days before Yuuri thought Conrad would leave him behind were some of the most agonizing he could remember, and it translated itself perfectly in his music.<p>

The fast and jubilant solo in the fifth movement was supposed to be easy. It was supposed to be technically challenging, but only enough for a lead player to get an ego boost showing off. Yuuri didn't have the skill of a lead player- heck, he'd spent most of the previous year not even touching his instrument- so it was much more problematic.

Practicing all the time was the only way to get better before the concert, but Yuuri found that it came naturally. When he had one goal to focus on, it was easy to spend all his energy reaching it. He spent at least an hour every day after school in the practice rooms, and the time seemed to fly by. Often he got kicked out by the janitors working their rounds at ten o'clock. His older brother was concerned at how much time Yuuri was spending at school, but his parents were happy that he was putting his energy into something other than baseball.

After a couple weeks of intense practice, he finally felt confident enough to ask Conrad to start practicing together. The finale of the fifth movement relied entirely on how well they could work together, and it was going to be obvious even to an untrained audience. Shinou had the pair of them standing up near the front of the stage, far enough forward that he would actually be watching _them_ for the tempo instead of the other way around. This was supposed to give them the most freedom to play together, but Yuuri just thought it just gave them the most stress. So the two of them had to be used to paying close attention to each other; they had to watch each other for the tempo, listen to adapt to changes in volume, and generally "feel each others' auras," as Gunter put it.

Yuuri already considered himself skilled at watching Conrad. But seeing Conrad watching him was simply unnerving. The same eyes that previously ran across his sheet music now only glanced over to it once in a while, spending most of their time running over Yuuri's body instead. The rest of his face looked as full of concentration on the music as always, which was a small relief. But Yuuri knew Conrad wasn't stupid. With the older boy already seeing him several times a day between classes, there was no way he could be missing every time Yuuri blushed under his gaze. He never said anything, though, and Yuuri could only guess why.

He thought the class rehearsals were going well, so he was surprised when Shinou pulled him and Conrad aside after class a couple weeks before the concert.

"Are you two familiar with _The Lion's Return_?" The older man asked them, his arms crossed against his chest.

Conrad nodded, but Yuuri shook his head. "I know Gunter talked about it a little bit before handing out the music written about it, but that's it."

"Perhaps it would behoove you to ask your partner about it, then." Shinou waved the two of them off.

"I'll tell you about it next time we're practicing together, Yuuri," Conrad said softly as they left.

* * *

><p>"So how much do you know about the story, Yuuri?"<p>

"Uh... there's a hero, and he goes off to fight in a glorious war. Everyone thinks he died, including his girlfriend. Then he comes back and everyone's happy. Right?"

"Not really. First, he doesn't go off for the glory. He goes off to find a place to die. He feels unwanted at home, and thinks that it would be easier if somebody killed him. That's why the first two parts of the play are ironic. The nation hails the warriors embarking on the campaign as glorious heroes, but the main character just wants to die. And the slow march to the battlefield is supposed to be filled with dread, but the hero anticipates release instead."

"That's just messed up."

"So he goes out to battle, and he rushes in, but he doesn't give up while fighting. Every time he's about to receive a fatal blow, a face appears in his head, telling him not to die just yet. Then he dodges or blocks the attack, and the face disappears. And when the captain orders the group to fight to the last man, the face appears and tells him to run away. He does, and no one else lives to call him a deserter."

"And that face is his girlfriend?"

"Well, have you thought about the fact that the hero's lover is voiced by a trombone?"

"I thought it was kinda weird. I think of high woodwinds when I think of something that's supposed to represent a girl. I guess it's just because the two brass instruments sound good together."

"The flute and clarinet solos do represent women. The trombone solo represents a man." Yuuri felt his face start to blush so bright it felt like he was on fire, but Conrad kept going. "The two were just friends, and they had a fight, and that's what causes the hero to go on his quest for death. After their separation they realize how important their relationship is, and that leads to both the fourth movement solo you play as well as the whole fifth movement. The reconciliation has three parts. First, joy at the hero's return. Second, comfort as they apologize for their contributions to the rift between them. Third, the sort of 'riding off into the sunset' feeling they get after they both admit they want a deeper relationship than they had before."

Conrad paused there, and Yuuri brought his eyes up to meet Conrad's. He knew his blush was still marring his face, but to his surprise, Conrad's cheeks were a bit pink too. Making eye contact triggered something in the older boy, and he started moving toward Yuuri.

"Maybe it was something they missed doing while separated. 'I miss running my hands through his hair.'" Conrad reached over and mussed up Yuuri's hair a bit. "Maybe it was missing the feeling of somebody caring about you. 'He always knew what to say at a time like this.'" He moved back a bit, regaining eye contact with Yuuri. He stood there for long enough for Yuuri to get uncomfortable at the silence, but he moved down close to Yuuri's face as he started talking again. "Maybe they both realized they'd missed a chance to try something... different.

He bent down and his face was mere centimeter's from Yuuri's. He brought his hand up and held onto Yuuri's chin as he bent in a bit further. Conrad's lips brushed up against Yuuri's, not lightly yet not harshly either. The kiss was over almost before it began, and Conrad straightened up.

"Was that serious?" Yuuri whispered.

"I'm always serious with you, Yuuri."

* * *

><p>The last two weeks before the concert flew by. Yuuri wasn't brave enough to try anything public with his newfound sort-of boyfriend, but he could barely wait for the school days to end so they could head to the private practice rooms. Even in the safety of a locked room with thick walls padded to prevent sound from escaping, Yuuri wasn't comfortable moving beyond simple kisses. But the time the two spent practicing together felt like a dream.<p>

Yuuri honestly didn't remember most of the concert, so he was grateful (for once) that his mother took a video of the entire thing. He could have done without her comments though. Apparently she was quite familiar with the play the song was based on, and she added some narration "for flavor."

Based on what the video showed and how his classmates talked about it, he performed pretty well. He didn't play technically as well as he could have, and he lamented that. The strength of his emotions properly reached everyone, both in the fourth and fifth movements. And people in the front rows could see that Yuuri and Conrad had played the piece so often that instead of looking at their music, they were staring into each others' eyes the whole time.


End file.
